


Masking

by AgentStannerShipper



Series: tumblr ficlets [82]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, TV Show spoilers, well its implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 15:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale will have to choose their faces carefully. It's a good thing they always choose each other.





	Masking

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my reaction ficlets to the tv show: a consideration on how body-swapping might have come about.

“What do you think she meant by faces?” Aziraphale asked. He was sitting on Crowley’s bed, in Crowley’s flat, and he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it. Crowley himself was lounging, spread on top of the covers like some sort of model the likes of which Michelangelo would have itched to get his hands on. Aziraphale contented himself to staring at the wall, back ramrod straight and with his hands resting firmly on his thighs, lest they wander.

Crowley cocked his head. Without his glasses, he looked somehow less demonic, even with the yellow eyes. He gave Aziraphale a lazy smile and a shrug. “Dunno. Probably just meant we’d have to do our best to hide. Neither side is especially fond of us now. I’ll bet you it’s only a matter of time before they come for us.”

“Yes, quite,” said Aziraphale, who despite asking the question was only half-listening to the answer. There was something about the phrasing of the prophecy that scratched at the back of his brain. _Playing with fire_.

He turned swiftly, a hand landing on the bed and then nearly sending him face-first into the mattress as it skidded on silk. He righted himself. “How do you think they’ll do it?”

“It?”

“Punish us.”

“Oh.” Crowley leaned back against the headboard, head tilted up towards the ceiling. “Well, Hell’s got a very ‘eye for an eye’ sort of thing going. Figuratively speaking. More a ‘massively painful poetic death for an eye,’ but you get my point. After what I did to Ligur, I expect holy water will probably be involved.”

“You think they’ll kill you?”

“What, you don’t?”

Aziraphale contemplated that. He recalled, vaguely, a talk he and Crowley had once had about ‘ineffable mercy.’ He sighed. “You’re right. Of course, there aren’t many things that can kill an ang-“ He stopped. _Playing with fire._

Crowley leaned forward. “I know that look. You’ve just thought of something.”

“Do you think…” Aziraphale said slowly, “that it’s very likely that our former sides will cooperate to kill us?”

Crowley frowned. He pulled his long legs in, crossing them. Aziraphale mirrored his position. He continued, “What I mean is, Hell will have to get the holy water from _somewhere_. And the most logical way to kill an angel is-“

“Hellfire,” Crowley finished. Understanding was dawning in his yellow eyes. Understanding, and horror.

“And,” Aziraphale said, eyebrows raising pointedly, “it only makes sense that Hell would acquire it from Heaven, since holy water does nothing to angels. And in exchange…”

“Hell would send Heaven hellfire,” Crowley said. “Because it doesn’t hurt demons.”

There is a kind of thing that some humans can do if they are very psychic, or if they have known each other a very long time. This is casually referred to as ‘mind reading,’ and it largely consists of being so in tune with someone else that you can infer what they might be thinking, simply from past history and the expressions on their face. Crowley and Aziraphale were not human, nor were they psychic. But they had known each other a very, _very_ long time.

“It could work,” Crowley said. “It’s a long shot, but maybe…”

“We’d have to disguise our scents, of course,” Aziraphale said. “Gabriel could tell a demon had been hanging around my shop just because it smelled like you.”

“And you’d have to loosen up a bit,” Crowley pointed out. “Otherwise no one would believe-“

“Yes, well, you would have to-“

“You think I don’t know how you act? How you talk?” Crowley said. “Six thousand years, angel. If we can’t pretend to be each other by now, I don’t think we ever will.”

“Fair enough.”

Crowley grinned. “Looks like you’re going to get to inhabit my body after all.”

Aziraphale gave him a reproachful look. “There’s really no need for that tone.” He flexed his fingers, “Ah, should we…?”

“Best to switch as soon as possible, I’d think,” Crowley said. He unfolded from his sitting position and prowled forward on his knees, sidling up to Aziraphale more like a panther than a snake. “They’ll probably be watching.”

“Right.” Aziraphale’s mouth was suddenly very dry. “You’ll, ah, take good care of my corperation then? After losing it like that-“

“I’ll treat your body right, Aziraphale,” Crowley promised. He reared up on his knees and held out his hand. “Come on, then.”

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand.

What happened might look to the human eye like Crowley and Aziraphale were bleeding into each other. This was not quite what was happening. What was happening was an angel and a demon carefully removing the threads that bound their essences to a physical form and retying it to the other, and when it was done, Aziraphale and Crowley were in the same spots they had been, but the bodies they inhabited on Earth had swapped places, as easily as if they’d traded clothes.

Aziraphale squirmed and frowned. He tugged experimentally at the scarf around his neck. “Really, my dear. How do you move in this thing? It’s so…tight.”

“You get used to it,” Crowley said. He was busy patting at his new thighs, his stomach. “Yours is great. So comfy. Like sliding into a sofa or something.”

“You don’t slide into a sofa, you sit on one.”

“Semantics,” Crowley waved a hand broadly, the motion fluid in a way that looked very odd inside Aziraphale’s corperation. He was still pinching at it, like one might fluff and squeeze a new pillow.

Aziraphale cleared his throat and nearly choked. This body had more tongue than he really knew what to do with. He coughed. “Ah, do you think you could refrain from…touching like that?”

“Like what?” Crowley looked up. His eyes were blue.

The words died on Aziraphale’s lips. They stared at one another.

“Oh,” Crowley said. “Like that.” He carefully placed his hands on his thighs, a perfect mimicry of the way Aziraphale had held them earlier. “Better?”

“Indeed.” Aziraphale tried to relax his own posture. He knew how Crowley sat – sprawled, rather – but the gesture was a bit alien to him. He stretched his legs out a bit so he took up more space, even in such a slim body. “How’s this?”

“Great.” Crowley was still watching him. The look in his eyes was something Aziraphale had seen before and never understood. In his own body, reflected back at him, it suddenly was much less inexplicable.

They were both cowards, it occurred to him. A different sort of coward, but cowardly nonetheless. Aziraphale knew there were things he’d refused to acknowledge, things he’d tamped down and locked up, never to see the light of day. And Crowley, who had never been in denial, who had hinted but had never asked outright, who had never been willing to make a move because Aziraphale had never been willing to accept it. Six thousand years. What a waste.

Well. Not entirely a waste. And maybe it was being in a demon’s body, even without the essential demon inside, but there was something hot brewing under Aziraphale’s skin, and being reckless – something he’d never been, could never be before – suddenly sounded like a very good idea.

“You know,” he said, and aimed for Crowley’s leisurely drawl, “we still have to find a way to smell like each other.” The words, not quite his, not quite Crowley’s, tasted funny in his mouth.

Crowley’s jaw dropped. He coughed in a perfect imitation of Aziraphale. “Uh, quite?”

Aziraphale reached for him with slender fingers and cradled a plump cheek. Crowley’s mouth shut. “Angel…”

“Not at the moment,” Aziraphale murmured, and kissed him. He had entirely too much tongue for one mouth, he decided, but for two, it was just right.


End file.
